Solution for automatically populating photo sheets with attached photos?

Question

Hi all,

I've already posted a question on this topic but so far haven't gotten any responses, so I'm trying again in a more general way.

We often conduct tree surveys using Field Maps, creating a point feature for each tree and attaching a photo. The resulting arborist's report includes a map showing all the numbered tree locations and a series of photo sheets showing a small photo for each tree in a grid, like this:

We only display one photo per tree and include a caption with attributes from the feature (in this example, tree number, species, and condition).

For surveys with only a few dozen trees, it's not a big deal to produce those photo sheets manually, but for surveys with hundreds of trees, it's extremely time consuming. I want to automate production of these photo sheets but I'm having an unexpected amount of trouble figuring out how to do it.

I started out by building a report template in Pro but I haven't been able to figure out how to include photo attachments for multiple features on each page. I can only do one feature per page or one feature per row. I need rows and columns.

Then I thought maybe I could somehow accomplish it with dynamic pictures in a map series but I haven't gotten that to work either.

Now I'm thinking maybe some kind of Power Automate flow pulling the exported photos from their folder into an Excel or Word table. I already have all the photos (599) exported to a folder and named with their tree number and species, which I want to display as a caption for each photo.

Has anyone else figured out how to produce a photo sheet like the one shown above displaying one attachment for each feature in a layer (or selected set) with multiple photos per page displayed in a grid? I can't be the first person who has wanted to do this, so I'm hoping someone will be able to point me in the right direction.

Thank you!

HollyTorpey_LSA · Answer

Thank you so much for sharing your workaround. I just added an ArcGIS Ideas post on this topic, so if it would be useful to you to be able to generate your asset reports in Pro, please consider adding your use case or additional suggestions here to help the idea get some traction: Add a Photo Sheet report template for layers with ... - Esri Community

MErikReedAugusta · Answer

We have used a substantially similar setup in the past for our MS4 reporting, where we'd display 4 Assets per page.  The sub-layouts have varied, but we've done single-photo, multi-photo, map, no map, and descriptions.

The trick is to create the sub-layout in Pro, and then merge it 4-up (or 12-up, in your case) using an external program, like Acrobat Pro, or InDesign.

To elaborate, using a setup of 100 trees displayed 4-up on ANSI Letter (8.5×11") size, for simple math:

* Create a new Layout in Pro for the individual record.  Size should be 4.25×5.5", or a quarter of the finished 4-up size.
* Export this file to PDF; you should have a 100-page PDF of small pages.
* Using the program of your choice, have each page flow to one corner of an ANSI Letter page.  One simple way in Acrobat is to print to the PDF printer using the "Poster" setting, and choosing a 2×2 grid.  Result will be a different PDF file that's 4-up.
* Save your resulting 25-page PDF file that has your entries 4up and email/print, as desired.

The math is a little more complex for 12-up, depending on your page size, but it should still be doable.  Just divide your long edge by 6 and your short edge by 2.